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The quarterlife crisis of the Information Age
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Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize for Literature
Bob Dylan, born in Duluth and raised in the Mesabi Iron Range mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. Though Dylan made several short lists for the prize in recent years, few thought the most prestigious writing award in the world would go to an artist whose primary medium was songwriting. This…
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Sunny outlook for Northern Minnesota … too sunny
Who doesn’t love the sun? The sun lights the world, warms the atmosphere, and keeps Earth from hurtling into the cold vacuum of space. It’s neither the biggest star in the universe, nor the most interesting. The sun is just a working class star that keeps the gas burning 24/7. Sure, the sun can cause…
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Grandpa has something to tell Grandma
Gray skies hang low over the idled Keewatin Taconite plant. I meet my grandpa, Marv Johnson, at the very busy Sinclair gas station. We’re on a secret mission. “Too crowded,” he says. I peek around the corner at the gas station’s only table and chairs. Several townsfolk stare back like whitetail deer. Grandpa’s already back…
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Bob Dylan’s ironwork built to last
Bob Dylan is only a few years younger than my Grandpa Brown. In fact, Robert Zimmerman grew up just down the street from Pops in Hibbing, Minnesota. Pops would have been one of the tough kids revving engines past the Zimmerman place on 25th Street, perhaps prompting young Bobby to look down from his bedroom…
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On Swedish (American) Egg Coffee
If you spend enough time around older Scandinavian-Americans in Minnesota they eventually tell you about Swedish Egg Coffee. Then they make you drink it. They will not let you leave or change the subject until you agree that it is better than “regular” coffee. What is Swedish Egg Coffee? Don’t overthink it. It’s coffee brewed…
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Attracting hope years after 9/11
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Automation on the industrial frontier
Labor Day on the Iron Range means more than just the last big car race up at the Hibbing Raceway, though that is without doubt a big deal. Here, Labor Day celebrates the broken bodies and fighting spirit of pioneering loggers, miners and entrepreneurs. Their sacrifices slowly built a better world and a better workforce…
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On ‘Clarence’ and wallets filled with gravity
My kids like to watch a show called “Clarence” on Cartoon Network. To be honest, I like it, too. This oddball kid Clarence lives in Aberdale, a suburb of a large city in the American Southwest. His mom is a hair stylist and her boyfriend Chad, Clarence’s father figure, is unemployed. All but one or…
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Dig a mile in another man’s skid steer
As khaki-wearing bloggers go, I interact with a unusually high number of people who operate heavy equipment. These people move dirt for fun and profit using machines that suck diesel fuel the way a dry horse drinks water. I owe part of this to family ties. My Grandpa Brown, now an octogenarian, uses his skid…
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‘Be Prepared’ for change
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Only time knows ‘truth’ of Great River
With more than 1,000 lakes and many rivers, Itasca remains one of Minnesota’s most watery counties. And like the old adage goes, “whiskey is for drinking, but water is for starting wars.” The word “Itasca” comes from the inner syllables of the Latin words “Veritas” and “Caput,” meaning “Truth” and “Head” of the Mississippi River.…
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Researchers list ideas for Range economic resilience
Economic diversification on Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range has been a hot topic ever since I learned how to spell those words, and surely long before that. The darnedest thing about the subject is that most folks will support the concept of diversification, but fewer will accept a role in making it happen. This is only amplified by what is,…
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T-bone fever: Tales from a meat raffle
Though humans evolved as omnivores, many people on earth do not eat meat. Early vegetarianism could be found in ancient Greece. Abstinence from animal flesh has been part of Hinduism and Buddhism since the 7th Century BC. One finds vegetarians in many parts of modern society, many swearing by the health benefits and moral authority…
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Breaking Broadband: progress in rural Minnesota
